They Hate Our Policies

On the day before Thanksgiving, after the study was revealed by the New York Times, the Defense Department released a report by the Defense Science Board that said "Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies." reported by the Global Policy Forum reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor. "The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states."

They know. But they continue to lie to us. It still makes me sick.

It Was Only a Matter of Time
The dominos fall. My Local News -- that is the Washington DC metropolitan area -- is leading off the evening newscast with a story about pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills because, after all, you shouldn't be having sex. And as we all know, if you have sex you should be punished by getting pregnant and being forced to carry the baby to term.

You say I'm being an extremist, exaggerating? How about this? "Louisiana Pharmacist, Lloyd Duplantis believes birth control is tantamount to abortion. "I don't sell condoms", he says. "I don't sell foams. I don’t sell creams. I don't sell anything to do with contraception." Ole Lloyd seems to be legally allowed to call himself a pharmacist though. 14-states are considering bills protecting pharmacists, leaving women, including those who take the pill for a medical condition to go elsewhere. Now in my neighborhood chances are folks can, in fact, go elsewhere. But in a whole lot of the country the're trapped.

How bad is it going to get in four years? Worst that any of us can imagine.

What is the Agenda?
When I get flooded with negative emotional crap, I respond by burying myself in intellectual pursuit. My most recent theme has been a struggle with and analysis of the current administration's agenda. What on earth is it?

They aren't conservatives, in spite of the fact that we often call them that. They don't mind spending huge sums of taxpayer money that they don't yet have to support their friends and their war and anything else they've a mind to. They only use the rhetoric of conservatism to push things like destroying social security and shifting the tax burden to the middle class. And what happened to letting the markets work?

They aren't libertarians. They don't mind mucking in the finest details of domestic policy including testing state run schools, medical policy including whether women can have abortions, and what folks can see on television.

They aren't liberals -- in some ways they seem reactionary, but it really isn't that either. In fact no matter how hard I try, I can discover no coherent political philosophy in their actions.

You know, I sound like a total nut case when I conclude that the real agenda is just to grab and maintain control. Each of their individual policy initiatives seems aimed at either shoring up a small segment of the electorate, removing some power or control that was previously held by the citizenry or some non-governmental entity, or undermining the Constitution.

And I sound like a paranoid nut. But I think I'm right.

Now I'm going to go find some decent reading material about the rise of totalitarianism in other societies to look for parallels. All recommendations are welcome.

I Blame Bill Clinton

I have been through the denial, total profound depression, sadness, and the desire to move to Belieze. (It is just too cold in Canada.) I have tried to get it out of my system reading irrelevant fiction, drinking, whining, obsessing, and playing video games. (Try it ladies. Pick up a first person shooter and after you get over the fact that you aren't supposed to be doing it you'll learn to wallow in the joy of randomly murdering whoever gets in your way. I think you'll like it,)

Now I have arrived at anger, and I expect to stay here for a while. Don't get me wrong. It isn't like I find myself in an unchanging state. I went through that white hot murderous rage when I avoided the supermarket so that I didn't snap at an innocent checker. But my mood has developed into a more focused, measured, retaliatory rage. I'm spending time thinking of what to do about it all, how to get back at them, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again. It isn't white hot. It is very very cold.

And today it occurred to me that it is Bill Clinton's fault.

Bear with me for a moment.

Bill Clinton in his own way deserved the Presidency. He was a good wonk and served well. And, just for the record, I don't care whether or not he got an occasional blowjob. But he was elected because he had that charismatic thing that is fabulous in person and manages to light up the television set.

But he wasn't anything remotely resembling a liberal. In fact he was on the right side of the middle, in my view. In another time he would have been a perfectly suitable liberal Republican. (Yes, Virginia. There used to be such a thing.) And we -- yes WE -- let the right pin the liberal label on him. So, at best, the American public began to see him as a the left side of the spectrum and anything to the left of that as extreme. He moved the perceived center. And ever since folks (read Al Gore, John Kerry, and tons of folks who you could name yourself) have been chasing Republicans for the center. Meanwhile the center keeps moving rightward.

I'm going to write a thorough analysis of this one of these days, and figure out what positions have actually moved. And I'm going to do everything to get the bastards. Meanwhile, let's not be looking for a Terry McAuliffe clone at the DNC please. We already have the DLC; we don't need to duplicate that.

Hope you are feeling a little better.

I have added The Rude Pundit
to the sidebar. A friend pointed me to his "The Five Stages of Grieving For George Bush's Re-Election" series which I found insightful and calming, albeit rude. I held off posting about it until he finished because I suspect some of you, like me, aren't feeling very patient right now and might not be in the mood to wait for his daily contribution.

Go atart with Stage 1 and scroll up. Meanwhile I'll walk my dog and try to coalesce some of my thoughts about the election and where we go from here.

Feelings

It is hard to deal with feelings when I still feel gut-punched, but it is time I got started.

Mostly right now I'm sorry. Every single one of us could have done a little more, opened our eyes a little wider, taken it a little more seriously. So for whatever small thing I failed to do, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry because so damn many caring, patriotic, well-meaning, hard-working people will spend the next four years being treated as if they don't matter.

The word of the day is 'mandate.' Mr. Bush talks about unity while Mr. Cheney and his henchcritters talk about a mandate, about the largest number of voters ever voting for Mr. Bush, more than Ronald Reagan. Well news !! The second largest, more than voted for Ronald Reagan, voted for John Kerry.

I'm wandering.

Anyway this manufactured mandate will be the excuse for turning everyone who isn't a Rove loyalist into a non-person. Get used to it now so you aren't shocked later.

I'm also sorry for all of the people who won't get educated or fed or receive medical care because some cowboy mentality is struggling to pull us back 75 years and erase the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt. And I'm sorry for all of the folks who will die in silly wars and the other folks who will die in preventable terrorist attacks.

So we have to fix it. Don't forget that while you're mourning.

Blogger Is Back!

I've had nothing but Blogger lockups for 24 hours. Sigh.